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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932389">Hidden Bloom, Rising Sun</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerd_of_Camelot/pseuds/Nerd_of_Camelot'>Nerd_of_Camelot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Flower The Blooms In Adversity Is The Most Rare And Beautiful Of All [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Human, BAMF Michelangelo (TMNT), Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Unintentional Redemption, Villains to Heroes, bare with me i'm still figuring out how to tag this</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:33:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,264</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932389</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerd_of_Camelot/pseuds/Nerd_of_Camelot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of two families and all the work they have to put into doing better.</p>
<p>A story of a spoiled boy and his little sister and their horrible father and their plan to get away from him.</p>
<p>A story of three steadfast brothers and their doting, but strict, dad and their fight for a better life for themselves and for him.</p>
<p>A story of forming bonds and breaking ones.</p>
<p>A story of Michelangelo, and everything he still needs to learn.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Donatello &amp; Leonardo &amp; Raphael &amp; Splinter (TMNT), Donatello &amp; Leonardo &amp; Raphael (TMNT), Karai &amp; Michelangelo (TMNT)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Flower The Blooms In Adversity Is The Most Rare And Beautiful Of All [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804435</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The World On A Plate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>If asked, he wouldn’t have any complaints to offer about his life or his </span>
  <em>
    <span>quality</span>
  </em>
  <span> of life. He had everything he could want or need. Anything he asked for was his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he was taught everything he needed in life, including self-defense and anything else he might set his mind to learning. He was given everything he needed to be great. Everything he needed in order to exceed expectations. And he did exceed expectations, even when he thought he might not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Until some time after his fourteenth birthday, at least, when both he and his father realized there were no more expectations he could beat in what he’d already been trained in. Asking more of him would be possible, sure, but him </span>
  <em>
    <span>exceeding</span>
  </em>
  <span> the expectation would be impossible. There was only so much that his body could take.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His frustration at not being able to train his body any further without drawbacks kept him safe, for the most part.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not to say he’d be in </span>
  <em>
    <span>danger</span>
  </em>
  <span> otherwise, of course―it was simply that being frustrated showed he cared enough about it for it to bother him that he couldn’t go much further at his age. Couldn’t go much further unless he started supplementing his current training with forms and methods meant solely to strengthen his body rather than really teaching him anything useful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He decided not to, for now, and explained it as not wanting to waste his time on it when he could continue to perfect what he had and learn new forms and methods that were actually useful and constructive in developing his style. It was an acceptable answer―striving for perfection was valued highly. And strove he did, with every breath and motion he put into his training.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Past the basics of English and math, he was never forced to learn anything unless he had to learn it in order to learn something he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to learn. He was allowed to decide what he did and didn’t need to know to continue with his life and his other educational pursuits. He was given jobs from his father to prove his worth and took them gladly. He perfected skills until he could no longer learn anything substantial and continued practicing them afterwards just in case.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He filled his life and his time with art and music, and math and science, and martial arts and video games. He lived and breathed the things that he loved so dearly, was the most intelligent person bar his father that anyone they knew interacted with on a semi-regular basis.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He also filled what little free time he had with his sister, who was not so much their father’s pride and joy as she was </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> pride and joy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was not near the prodigy that he was, and he did not expect her to be. She still learned quickly nonetheless, and despite not learning everything on the first try she usually got it within the first five. It was impressive, objectively―she certainly did better than </span>
  <em>
    <span>most</span>
  </em>
  <span> people did. Just not as well as </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> did, and that was fine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was perfect the way she was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she was the </span>
  <em>
    <span>only</span>
  </em>
  <span> person he had ever believed that of. Everyone else, well, they had so much advancing they needed to do. So many things they needed to learn and start doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she was perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And as they grew, she learned, and he had less time to give her while also indulging in other pursuits. He was promoted to his father’s Right Hand and it was an honor he took gladly. Eagerly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanted to be important.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As long as he was important, as long as he pleased his father, he got the world handed to him on a silver platter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he wanted that.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>do i know what this is? nope.<br/>but it's a thing i'm writing because i already have the entire first piece outlined already lol<br/>probably not gonna be frequently updated for now? got a lot of other stuff i'm working on at the moment so once i finish off some of my other multi-chapter works this one'll move up in priority</p><p>anyways hope you enjoy!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Begging For Scraps</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Hamato clan had little, but they rarely wanted for anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael were raised in a small apartment in one of he worse neighborhoods in New York. Their father scraped by with what money he could make doing odd jobs around the neighborhood and the nicer ones nearby, and once they were old enough they did too. It was enough, usually, to keep them fed and their rent paid, particularly once they started contributing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Attending school was an adventure they never got the chance to take―regrettably it cost money.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All they could do was pray their father saying he home schooled them was enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Primarily they taught themselves―Donatello was a highly curious sort and the moment he had a library he could bike to and unrestricted internet access, he took off leagues ahead of his brothers in learning. Neither minded, really. Each had their own passions or interests, and when one of them needed help the others came to their aid as quickly as possible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In what free time they all had, their father taught them all the martial arts he had learned in his youth. It was how he taught them discipline as well as personal protection. And he’d sprinkle in stories of his own brother, Yoshi, who had died some few months before their father, Daichi, had adopted them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a good set up, and they never wanted for anything too intensely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their father’s wisdom and teachings gave them what they needed to feel happy and at peace, while also striving to survive. They were all very close and they wouldn’t abandon each other for anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a keen loss they all felt, of course, that made things hurt when they thought too long―they had once had another brother, Michelangelo, but it had been years since any of them had seen him. Long enough that it was unlikely he was still alive, as they’d all been very young when he’d disappeared. And as such, even being happy with their lives, they all mourned him each day.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’d been too young to really know him, too young to remember much of what he had been like.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They all had their own vision of him, really, that they enjoyed imagining when it didn’t hurt to do so. Leonardo saw him as fun-loving, but controlled. Donatello saw him as intelligent, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>un</span>
  </em>
  <span>controlled. Raphael saw him as disciplined and strong, but probably a goofball who wouldn’t take anything too seriously.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And their father, Daichi, they didn’t know how he thought of Michelangelo, but if asked he would tell them that Michelangelo had always had a spark. That there was something in him that had screamed potential. And he wouldn't tell them the deeper thought―the thought that, perhaps, that potential was why Michelangelo had been taken from the world when he was so incredibly young.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And so they all grew and learned and helped their father pay for what they needed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They didn’t have everything, but they had what they needed and they had each other. They had enough to get by and they were all more than capable of saving up what little they could in order to buy things that they happened to want and not need.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Donatello even started making a little extra money by offering to write people’s essays for them. It was illegal, sure, and if they happened to get caught they were in trouble, but it wasn’t as if they could really punish Donnie for it. Raphael thought it was hilarious that he was willing to do something illegal to make money, and Leonardo and their father both politely turned their heads and ignored where the random hundred-dollar bills came from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was good.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And it was enough.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Ok now that the Vague Backstory has been laid down, the actual story can begin!</p>
<p>Chapters will probably get lengthier after these first two, as well.</p>
<p>Also, if this story follows any 'canon' at all, it would more closely resemble the 2003 cartoon than anything else since that was always my favorite incarnation of the turtles and I know its lore the best.</p>
<p>Thanks for reading &lt;3</p>
<p>One last note - Splinter's "real" name, Daichi, was chosen for two reasons! One was because I wanted he and Yoshi to be different characters, and secondly was because one of Daichi's meanings is "great wisdom" which I felt fit him ;w;</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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